Pre Shrunk: Eye Spy.

Ben Kweller

Pre Shrunk play The Zoo on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Bestseller is in stores now.

Drum and bass could easily have been a term coined to describe Pre Shrunk. What you see, basically is what you get; two bassists and a drummer. But what they sound like is something else all together, merrily transcending musical boundaries to pump out a mixture of pop, rock and electronics that sounds strangely nothing like you’d expect. Their new album, Bestseller, is a brilliant indication of just what they can get away with.

“It’s good to finally have it finished,” explains Dave Morris, one of the band’s duelling bassists. “We just wanted to make a record that sounded good from top to bottom. That was the plan. We wanted to make an honest record, and not just dazzle ourselves with trickery.”

Is it hard not to get carried away with production when you’ve got all these toys yo play with?

“It is. It’s like saying, ‘I’ll only have one drink’. The temptation is always there. You have to be really disciplined with what you want to do. The whole band are really happy with the way it sounds and looks.”

Ahh, the way it looks. The entire CD packaging is covered in eyeballs… is it getting to people?

“I think so. We’re handing out postcards at shows that have that artwork on them as well. You get such great lines as ‘it only has eyes for you’. All the stock sad gags come out. Some people find it disturbing. The idea is to get the poster sized version for the back of your toilet door and give yourself some problems.”

Production wise, Bestseller features some sounds that could have come straight from the excesses of the eighties.

“We were very conscious of it. We were revelling in it, actually,” he laughs. “Reggie Bowman, who produced the record, does a lot of remixes, as do I, for other people. We were just talking about just doing eighties style remixes. We joked about it for a while and it was something we were laughing at while we were doing it.”

After all the time you spend in the studio, how do you get it sounding right on stage with the instruments you’re using?

“With the last record, Digital Sunrise, it was hard. It was diving in the deep end with computers and toys, and it was a bit of a new day for us. We really went nuts with production. This is definitely about having songs that are more songs than sound based, as the first record was.”